On GE's Pathological Aversion To Paying Taxes

In today's NYT, in a surprising critique of the company that is the right arm of Obama's administration, there is finally an extensive focus piece on how GE, which made $14.2 billion in 2010 ($5.1 billion of which came from the US), paid, wait for it, zero taxes in 2010. NYT summarizes this odd quandary as follows: "Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress." In fact, it is far, far worse. As Zero Hedge disclosed, when we looked at GE's tax allergy six months ahead of the NYT, or as early as October 2010, we observed that "between 2002 and 2009, during which timeframe the firm made a generous
$164.4 billion in pretax net income (not to mention $639 billion in domestic revenue, just over half of total revenues of $1.2 trillion) it paid only $5 billion in domestic current taxes, or a 3.17% tax rate!" In other words, GE has now made over $700 billion in domestic revenues, and has paid $5 billion in the period 2002-2010. Truly tax evasion Imagination at Work.

One of the more popular topics recently is the collapse in corporate
tax revenues, and the resultant push by the administration to ramp up
taxation at the corporate level. As Zero Hedge has been disclosing for
two months now, it all has to do with the now discredited concept of the
"wall of money", which is mostly accumulated offshore and is thus not
only available domestically, but is not taxed by the US. However, one
company which has somehow managed to slip through the cracks is the
infamous General Electric: the company, that in addition to the banks,
has been the biggest beneficiary of Obama's taxpayer largesse. Here are
the numbers: in the period between 1991 and 2009 GE's pretax income is
cumulatively $293 billion on which however the firm has paid only $25.2
billion in current domestic taxes, or a 8.58% cumulative tax rate. Yet
where it gets wild is the narrower period between 2002 and 2009, during
which timeframe the firm made a generous $164.4 billion in pretax net
income (not to mention $639 billion in domestic revenue, just over half of total revenues of $1.2 trillion) it paid only $5 billion in domestic current taxes, or a 3.17% tax rate! So our question to the administration is how does $639 billion in domestic revenue, and $164 billion in total net income, result in $5 billion in taxes?
Perhaps if the desperately broke administration is so concerned about
refilling its empty coffers, it should first of all look at the most
profitable (presumably) company in America... And perhaps CNBC can share
some coverage on the topic of its parent company's taxation strategy.

Note
the red line below which shows the cumulative domestic current taxes
paid by GE in the period 2002-2009, and compare it to the blue line, or
total pretax income.

It is good to know that the company headed by the man who is head of Obama's job's panel, is finally getting the tax avoidance spotlight it so truly deserves.

In the meantime, we can't wait for Immelt to head Obama's corporate tax collection task force. After all, as we disclosed previously, the man's job creation track record is truly second to none: "[Immelt] runs a big company, but Immelt has shown more skill at cutting jobs, frankly, than creating. GE finished 2009 with 18,000 fewer US workers than it had at the end of 2008, and US headcount is down 31,000 since Immelt's first full year in 2002. During his tenure, GE workers based in the US as a percentage of total employees has fallen to 44% from 52%."

Surely Immelt can repeat his "jobs miracle" in the corporate tax realm where a broke America is truly desperate for at least some corporate tax receipts.

no they plan to barter it with crappy appliances and faulty nuclear reactors and jet engines that have fan blades that break off during flight....cleaning house so to speak, or clocks like the American type clock.

Exactly 66. GE is anyways a bank pretending to be a manufacturing company. Just like GM is a bank pretending to be a car company. Noen of these pretnders need to pay taxes. They are more ont he queen's charter, maritime law serving than the productive enterprises they pretend to be (yes they employ many people, but that's the ploy).

We have our own version of GE here in India, called the TATA group. Same thing, taxes paid into the system is miniscule compared to profits.

@metastar The American people are too Fucking Stupid to rebel against the corporations and the elite who keep them debt slaves to the Central Bankers. I have tried to explain it and they just don't get it. They do not understand the concept that a devalued dollar is a tax. They are just too Fucking Ignorant.

Spot-on, ORI. GE is little more than a finance company which produces locomotives, hand mixers and dehumidifiers on the side. As finance-related entities are hard-pressed for earnings, it is frankly little wonder that GE "paid" so little in corporate income tax. <sarc>

You can tell by the shitty materials and design in their refrigerators that they concluded a long time ago the americans are idiots."

Oh...so you have one of their crappy refrigerators too?

My Profile is 3 years old and the entire freezer door is rusted thru the paint because the geniuses at GE allows the water and ice to run inside the door guts! I won't even go into the defrost cycle dumping water onto the floor. Or the Profile range with two burned out burners in the same time period at $100 each.

Maybe the accounting and design departments should change (what is left of) employees.

The usa tax system is abusive, complicated, and economically inefficient and distortive with some of the highest marginal rates in the world. It is the duty of all corporations and citizens to oppose this system and undermine it as much as possible. Hurray for GE!! Keep up the good work.

I agree. It is tax season, and why is it everyone must spend at least $50 on software simply to file? Since the software was written by companies in collusion with the IRS, a person must seek out the help of a CPA in order to get their rightful deductions. A few tax filings ago, I realized the tax code will never be simplified, there is a huge support industry created around filing 1040s.

The blueprint for change/obama's campaign platform included provisions for simplifying the filing process claiming multiple billions in savings for americans. My guess is that obama has never filed his taxes because a 1040EZ is about the end of the road as far as simplicity... He also failed to understand how many jobs that would gut at a time when jobs are hard to come by... and, ultimately, if squeezing efficiency out of the system through an overhaul of the complex maze of rules and regulations was a goal, then it can apply to virtually all areas, his hordes of staff and jackoff positions included. In the end, he capitulated on the issue.

But yes, GE does not have an aversion to paying taxes per se... rather, GE has a penchant for not having tax liabilities... the former presumes some sort of equal dispersion amongst all taxpayers for tax liabilities ... the latter presumes that there is no tax until the tax laws require us to pay... big distinction.

How many jobs would be lost if we standardized the plastic grocery bag?

One purpose of our government is to create jobs, it shouldn't be, but it is. A simplified tax code is a short term net job loser, and since our government can't think ahead any later than happy hour, I'd say we're f***ed.

The point, douche bag, is that GE is part of the system. Their company is roundup ready while all the little guy competitors who won't produce corner cut crap while robbing the American people with subsidies get doused with the roundup of big intrusive government. Big corporation's biggest fear is competition. The tax code and regulations, the Washington cronyism, are its best friends. You do not care about any of this because you love the way the system frees you of any social obligations because you are a douche bag, douchebag.

"Enjoying record profits and taxpayer-funded bailouts as the economy slowly recovers from a financial crisis, nearly two-thirds of US corporations don't pay any income taxes, instead opting to abuse tax loopholes and offshore tax havens. According to this study from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, 83 of the top 100 publicly traded corporations that operate in the US exploit corporate tax havens. Since 2009, America’s most profitable companies such as ExxonMobil, General Electric, Bank of America and Citigroup all paid a grand total of $0 in federal income taxes to Uncle Sam."

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short.

And if they did they would just pass it on to us. The only truly transparent tax is a capitation tax. We should divide the amount the government spends by number of people in the country and everyone coughs up their share. Any other tax is just a way for the elites to hide the true cost of government.

Sure, Leroy Jones, my trash man, pays more than corporate "person" ExxonMobil, so the only viable solution is to send everybody the exact same bill . . . which ExxonMobile will surely pay. And we all live happily ever after in a land where everybody is finally paying their fair share.

In a true capitalist society businesses don't pay taxes. Taxes are a cost of doing business just like rent, cost of materials, or labor. Costs determine the selling price of goods. If the government passes a one dollar condom tax, the condom company will raise the price of condoms one dollar. When you engage in sex, you get screwed twice. You'll find that Leroy and you pay a lot more taxes now than you would if we had a capitation tax. You just don't see it. We would also save money by eliminating tax accountants, the IRS, and a dozen other bureaucracies. Those peole could do somthing useful instead of leaching off a corrupt system.

I don't see the logic in your example that if the government taxes condoms, the manufacturer needs to raise prices. They just make less profit since demand will go down if the price (cost+margin+tax) increases. Of course this cost is passed along to the consumer, but I would think that going forward, we're more likely to see taxes on things we might want to discourage, like excessive fuel use. Condom use, not so much.

My feeling after reading your post was to wonder what you think business is here to do? Is it to help us meet our needs and perhaps some of our desires, or is it a mechanism to convert all the natural resources of the planet to waste and then permit the organizations primarily responsible for this destruction to be given constitutional rights while paying nothing to the state for their exalted position?

I no longer see any reason for profit. The lure of profits encourages risk-taking, and I think the nuclear disaster in Japan and the BP Gulf of Mexico ecodisaster are proof enough that business people are taking excessive risks, to the detriment of us all.

I ponder the irony of discussing the wisdom of central economic control on a website dedicated to exposing it's failures. In answer to your question business exits to make a profit for it's owners. They tried your way in the Soviet Union, but I doubt you are old enough to remember.

If business exists solely "to make a profit for its owners," then this is a recipe for the conversion of all things of real value into waste, as I suggested in my original response.

I'm not sure what you mean by "they tried your way in the Soviet Union." In my post, I was thinking that the needs of the people can be achieved through non-profits, where the profit motive is not part of the equation. Of course, a non-profit is also a bureaucracy and will tend to degrade like all bureaucracies, but at least there would not be the profit motive to further distort the situation. Perhaps it is too late for that.

As to the wisdom of central control, there is none. It is dependent entirely on cheap energy, and that is about to change abruptly.

Do you work for free? Of course not. In fact you don't do anything unless there is something in it for you, even if it just makes you fell better. Your utopia will never exist as long as humans populate the Earth. BTW central economic control has nothing to do with cheap energy. It's when pointy headed intellectuals elites decide what is best for the other inferior beings. You have no problem using the power of government to influence the behavior of people but you don't like when corporations do the same thing. Absolute power in the hands of a few is evil regardless of who they work for. Your concept of turning resources into waste is interesting. If I cut down a tree and turn the wood into lumber and build something useful, how is that waste? It is better to let the tree grow till it rots and falls over? The Earth is in constant flux and our presence here is makes no difference in the master scheme of things. Regardless of what we do one day the sun will nova and turn this planet in to a hunk of cinder before being incorporated into the resulting black hole. The universe won't even notice.

"You have no problem using the power of government to influence the behavior of people but you don't like when corporations do the same thing."

Is there really a distinction between government and corporations? As far as I can tell, they are virtually identical. I see that many government officials are former employees (or future ones) of major polluting and resource extraction industries. There is a revolving door between industry and government, and these industries have been writing our laws. I don't consent to almost everything this government does, so I wouldn't characterize my position the way you did. I don't believe in this government, and I don't consent.

"If I cut down a tree and turn the wood into lumber and build something useful, how is that waste? It is better to let the tree grow till it rots and falls over?"

In most cases, the answer is yes, because it permits the forest to regenerate. You can't just keep cutting down the forests at incredible rates and extract that material and then rationalize it by saying that something "useful" was produced. John Locke's ideas are so very 18th century. We live in a resource-limited world now. Do you know anything about ecosystems, or are you just a financial person, that deals in abstracts, and then assumes everything else is abstract as well? If so, you might want to read-up on salmon escapement and what spawned-out salmon bring to the ecosystems where they exist. Sadly, I have to inform you their numbers are radically decreased over the last century.

"The Earth is in constant flux and our presence here is makes no difference in the master scheme of things. Regardless of what we do one day the sun will nova and turn this planet in to a hunk of cinder before being incorporated into the resulting black hole. The universe won't even notice.""

Our presence here makes no difference in the "master scheme of things?" Wow, do you really believe this? Do you think that humans have anything to do with the distribution of highly radioactive particles eminating from Fukushima? Maybe I misunderstand your idea of the "master scheme of things," but this is as close to crazy-talk as I can possibly imagine. You are scary.

But you are right on one point: I don't work for free. My labor is my survival. Without it I will die in this country. But I would only point out that were it not for taxes related to land ownership, namely property taxes, I could actually be free. But my county requires me to pay tribute in order to have a place to live. I think it is extortion.

It is estimated that 50% of world corporate earnings are siphoned through tax havens and transfer pricing mechanisms to then feed operating affiliates, allowing optimal tax profiling for multinationals. Simple as taking candy from a baby. So whoever says US tax systems are overcomplicated and unfair is right about small enterprises; who don't transfer price as they are national not multinational. Not the US juggernauts! They piss on tax collectors the world over. By the way taxes don't just pay salaries of state sector flunkeys, they also pay for infrastructure and education etc. before lining the pockets of MCIC...

I don't think most are going to "appreciate" your form of humor....for the second time in just a few posts down this page.

People are very pissed off and more so by the day with each new revelation of how easy these criminals (from sea to shinny sea) are destroying their country like cancer or HIV destroys it's host. And, just like Cancer and HIV they know no country, make no exceptions, allow no survivors...less their own kind.

At some point Americans will have had enough...maybe in my lifetime or yours.

But if you keep up with your brand of humor, no one will bother reading you or you will earn a record number of JUNK stars..

Frankly the value of a junk, just like the dollar, has been severely debased over the last year here on ZH. Before it was reserved for shear stupidity or obviously intentional trolling. Now if someone is emotionally triggered or simply has his or her shorts bunched they hit the junk button.

So many emotionally wounded people (as well as psyops and disinfo people) with access to a junk button equals a debased junk tool. Junks have lost their descriptive power and I suspect it's one of the reasons ZH has raised the numbers of junks needed to disappear a post to 50. It's really meaningless after 5 or 10 unless it hits 50 and kills the post. Then it causes too much confusion. Just let it accumulate junks so the thread doesn't loose continuity.

Excellent analysis. I propose a new system of "junk debt". Tyler can issue Junks based upon an expanding or contracting membership pool. These junks will be given to some of the delegated power posters via a "discount junk window". The Power elite..er Posters can issue junks at a ratio of 10-1 to all the regular posters as a credit (fractional reserve junks). Regular posters can use their allotment of junks as they see fit. Once they use all of their junks, they could get more, only under certain conditions (go into junk debt). In the unlikely event the Power Posters run out of junks to issue, Tyler can issue more. If junk debts are not paid back under the terms of the junk bond, memberships can be mortgaged for a few more junks. After that, double secret probation.

I don't like disappearances. Why not let the junks build up? It was really useful on one of the Fukushima threads to see that "The Physicist" had received upwards of 40 junks, when he posted comments dismissing the seriousness of the situation there. That actually made me feel better, FWIW. I was inspired by the fact that there are others out there who care about the truth, not happy talk.

And yet, one of the things I really love about zh is the fact that this site is attracting numerous professional trolls, shills, and sock puppets, the cream of the crop. Also, I'd say, a goodly amount of psyops. It's a great one-stop shop for finding out about all the latest lies.

Hey, did ya'all know radiation is good for ya? And would you like some Corexit with your shrimp?

I suggest that you play their game and don't pay taxes either...starve the beast.

You start a small business with IRS form "C". You generally have 3 to 5 years of total losses before the 'eye' begins to look at your reporting. You combine all your total losses from your "C" with your income from your W-2 job and ...just like G.E. your tax bill is washed away ( and it does not affect your SS contribution either!).

Plenty of easy to read and understand books out there on "C" accounting. Hell, go sell pencils on the street corner on Saturday mornings (or better still for 5 minutes a day after work)...you write off your cloths, car ( at 55 cents per mile driven to and from), everything... including lunch if you discuss pencils while eating. Take your girl friend to dinner and the theater, talk about pencils and wa-la...a write off. Take that summer vacation and buy a few pencils here and there for samples to be compared to your pencil...that is research and a write off! My gosh if your little company had bought a $8,000 golfcart during "cash for clunkers" you could write that off too! (They did it, 100's of them...golf carts.)

THIS IS HOW they do it!!!!!

If it were hard there would not be so many doing it.

The rich get together and do 'partnerships" LLC etc, and then they really do some number crunching to strip income from the taxable bottom line.

This how anyone who has an "all American job" can turn their incomes into a windfall. Who knows, you may even get free money to employ aunt Minny and uncle MO.

ANGRY with how "they" are taking away your buying power? Take it back away from them!

READ YOUR TAX CODE, it is like the best crime novel you will ever read and a blueprint on how to succeed in America. Read what is relevant to you and use it. Without using the code they wrote to benefit themselves, you are just a slave supporting them and their fat lifestyles.

Oh...and here is the first idea for those of you whose attention is peaked.

Helium balloons. Helium is like oil and gas and forests, minerals, etc...it is depletable! The government will PAY you because you are depleting a resource which can not be replaced ( so the code says)! Free money on top of making money...get paid to use it. Screw growing corn to make gas.

It will be a youtube video of a patriot blowing the head off a bankster.

This will change the source of news Americans use as the MSM's "terrorist" is proclaimed a hero on the independent media networks of the Internet and American's see the nakedness of the true financial terrorism eating away Joe 6's way of life. Joe 6 is America and always will be. Locked and loaded bitchez.

Tax cheat? You do realize taxes are fancy word for the government legaly taking what is yours right? By law, the government can open your wallet, take your money and if you refuse, put you in jail. I will not succumb to mob rule by calling GE a tax cheat because they rightfully protected what was theirs. I only wish I had the resources to protect my wallet as well.

When you take you car out of the garage, you like to have a paved street to drive you car, don't you?

Who do you think that paid for the construction of that collective street, a street that is for common use of everyone in the city? The government paid. So, you are using a street that is not "yours", you are using a street that belongs to the government. So, do you think you should not pay taxes to the government?

Apparently, it's the luxury of the people to build and maintain infrastructure for the American plantation upon which we all hope and dream of working. Then when they off shore jobs, we blame high corporate taxes.

I paid for that street with local property taxes. I pay for the interstate with gas tax (plus change). The idea that my local government functioning competently gives the right to Washington, a thousand miles away, to rape me in every oriface is stupid. You are a stupid douche bag.

The government is not a "savior", it's just the "board of directors" of State Inc.

All companies have a CEO, elected by the shareholders. The modern society has a State, wich has a President, elected by the people.

A society can not work without a government. Even the most primitive indigenous tribes have some kind of government, some kind of leadership.

I'm not saying people should trust in their CURRENT government. By the way, we should not confound government with State. Governments change all the time in a democracy. The government is the manager of the State.

The problem is not the State itself. The problem is how the State is managed. The State should be a tool in the benefit of society. If the State is being used AGAINST society, we have a problem.

For the good or for the bad, yes, the government was elected by the people. People voted.

You may question the two party system in the USA, that, I agree, is very undemocratic.

Here in Brazil, we had 9 candidates in the last presidential elections, and all of them were eligible in all states, in all districts. All of them had the right to a free time in nationwide television, every single day. Totally for free, they didn't have to pay nothing. In fact, paid TV ads are forbidden by the Brazilian electoral law, the candidates can only put paid ads on newspapers and the internet, not in TV or radio.

Maybe the US need to learn some lessons about democracy with Brazil. But, anyway, in a democracy, governments are elected by the people.

"I will not succumb to mob rule by calling GE a tax cheat because they rightfully protected what was theirs."

I hardly think that using all kinds of accounting gimmicks and leveraging cross-national boundaries amounts to much more than subterfuge and deceit. Also, GE has massive government contracts and is the recipient of bailout monies.

It's like the 'mine to market' concept. Except they don't have any mines. But they're involved in just about every other aspect of the economy. everything else right up to commercial banking. Includes implementing a controlling ideology called SixSigma.

Your corporation depends in some way on GE? Then get ready to accept indoctrination.

The U.S. Import- Export Bank and its various counterparts around the G7 are the funding source and have been for decades. If any corporation was the beneficiary of taxpayer largesse, it has to be GE.

those on ZH long enough know it is not about who pays taxes..it's about criminal gangs and stolen gov ..world wide companies with no attachment to any country acting independent from the regs and laws and yes taxes paid by those not in the oligarchy.

All this NWO bullshit is just a creation of the Tea Party (funded by the corporations) to make people protest "against taxes", with the goal of reduce or eliminate the taxes FOR THE CORPORATIONS.

Corporations don't want to pay taxes, so they create an astroturfing (not grassroots) "movement" called the Tea Party, manipulating average people to protest "against taxes", in such a way that taxes will be cut for them (the corporations).

Average people don't want to pay taxes no matter who is telling them that taxes are bad. Especially since our tax money doesn't go to programs/projects that improve anything. So there might be a flaw in your argument.

I bet that tax money could go to programs/projects that improve something IF the tax money wasn't used to bailout broken banks and tax-cheating corporations, nor used to fund endless wars and runaway military spending.

"I bet that tax money could go to programs/projects that improve something IF the tax money wasn't used to bailout .."

call Obuma maybe he will spend it on programs and projects that improve something..

zina, there are no honest men running these socialist systems..only oligarchy and puppets of same..we see less than .10 cents on each dollar ever reach productive use..you know that having lived in Brazil and seen the wealth confiscated and stolen across all of SA..

now do you understand?? we in America want the "do gooders "out of our pockets and lives.

Well, I will not comment on the "socialist systems" part, because in my opinion, there's no socialism in the world since 1989 (since China and Cuba are market economies now and North Korea looks like some kind of medieval monarchy, just like some Arab kingdoms).

You argue about corruption. Of course almost all governments are corrupt, not only in the USA, but also in Brazil, in Colombia, in Italy, in most countries. But, what is the solution? All complex civilized societies needs some sort of government. The solution is fight against corruption, not against the very existence of the government, or against taxes. We all will need to pay taxes, our entire life, and so will our sons and grandsons. The only thing we can do is fight to curb corruption in the governments, to have a more transparent government, and to make our tax money have a useful destination and not be used to fund the "military-industrial complex" nor go to the pockets of corrupt politicians.

The part where 30 million people were taken out of poverty in the last 8 years, and joined the middle class?

Or the part where people are NOT becoming crazy because of a sick consumption society where the kids use the surrealistic word "looser" to insult other kids in the school? Kids in Brazil use words like "fool", "moron" or "asshole" to insult other kids in school, they never use a sick and surrealistic word like "looser". Society is not divided between "winners" and "loosers". This is the reason why we don't have rampages and massacres like that of Columbine every month, like in the USA.

Or the part where we have the sexiest women in the world, and the coolest beaches?

I thought it was widely known here at ZeroHedge that I live in Brazil... With a nickname and an avatar like this, I couldn't live in another country. You know... "Ronaldo, brilha muito no Corinthians" and all that stuff...

Before you ask what I know about the US, I have relatives who lived 12 years in "America" (and now are back in home).

I apologize Senior. I mistakenly suspected you may have been one of the hypocrites I often meet who go on and on about their home country, but seem to live in the United States by their own choosing. I weas wrong. Boa Tarde sir.

Anyone that knows the inner workings of the government knows that this is the stupidest thing ever uttered by anyone ever. Google "Paperwork Reduction Act". That's a good example of Orwelian naming of acts since it creates mountains of paperwork.

and to help just a little bit..the oligarchy is not concerned about taxes on corps..but about avoiding wealth confiscation and taxation on THEM..see W buffett and B Gates as examples, or SOROS but I think you have been blinded by too much SA leftist mind drugs.

Because their is no difference between the two. One is a vehicle through which they can continue to accumulate wealth. Without MS there is no Bill Gates. A tax on the corporation IS a tax on them (indirectly of course) as it affects the ability to accumulate MORE wealth.

Does this include the profit from helping Iran kill American boys in Iraq and Afghanistan? They must be able to single-handedly fund all the Democrat politicians up for national office with those tax savings. Its nice to see the Middle Class, the little guy, able to subsidize this fine corporation. Yes we can!

Everyone ripping on GE (or any other company/person not paying their "fair share" of taxes) is fucking clueless. It's no different than the idiots that go after welfare queens, "bad guys" selling cocaine, or government funded unions such as the teacher's union. You're swinging and missing badly, completely whiffing on the real problem. It's the government, stupid. Without the government, there is no way for someone to sit around and collect thousands per year for not working, while driving an Escalade and selling drugs on the side. There's no way to force people to do anything, without government. Why is it so hard to realize? Like, if GE paid 35% taxes instead of 3%, would you be any more free? Would the government be less intrusive or more if they had more money? Sure, they can print all day long, but the less we directly hand them, the more they rely on printing, the faster their endgame comes. And GE would most likely pass the cost down the line to hit the end consumer anyway. But my God people are fucking dumb. Gotta make sure everyone gets screwed equally, yessireee! Fucking clowns.

Wrong response after reading this story: #$^% GE! Let's rape them like we rape all the little guys! Yeah!

Right response: If all these companies aren't paying taxes, we can pay for a big cut in marginal rates by closing the loopholes. The big guys will pay more, but at much lower rates (still end up paying more actual $$$), while the little guys enjoy a big cut.

I don't wanna hear shit about how we gotta "reign in" out of control pensions for teachers and other public workers until some politician out there has the balls to stand up and demand that corporations pay their fair share -

These fucking parasites get to sell their shit in the biggest consumer market in the world...and get to enjoy our legal system (which almost always sides with them) and they get to set up shop in a nation that is the most stable and secure in the world (maybe not anymore....but at least that's our legacy). Yet somehow, they think it is alright, and actually a GOOD thing to avoid paying taxes. I guarantee you...if they could have gotten away with paying negative tax, they would.

This right here is a slap in the face to anyone who works for a living and has no choice but to pay their taxes. I say the U.S. outght to pull their charter until they pay their back taxes - who gives a fuck if it puts them out of business. I am sick an tried of our nation being run with a "business first" minset...what the fuck happened to "of, by and for the people" (that is a rhetorical question)

There's no such thing as "fair share"--banish such ideas from your mind. There is no way to equitably tax people or corporations that is even remotely fair. There is only human nature, and humans are flawed and will act in their own self-interest and in the interests of those closest to them (read: Monkey Sphere).

And GE does receive "negative tax" already in the sense that it is a major supplier of equipment and services to the government and did receive bailout monies (GE Capital).

amen. GE Capital took TLGP $$$ and had a credit line up to $126B, so in effect a negative tax. Amazing how ignorant Americans are to this, the corporate media (GE owned NBS) did a great job whitewashing this from the public and promoting the idea that Corporations are over taxed.

GE doesn't pay a single cent in taxes. Nor does any other corporation that isn't losing money, net. And they never will.

The ignorance sometimes displayed on this board is pathetic.

Go ahead, lock in the taxes the GE must pay by edict. But you also better restrict how much they can price their products and services at, and regulate their profit margins. At best the taxes that GE remits to various government authorities is merely a pass through from their customers to the government. Corporations are the AGENTS of government when it comes to taxes and if Zerohedge is a corporation you should already know that. When you aks for an increase in the taxes any company pays then you are aksing for an increase in prices that I pay when I buy GE Dishwasher. Comprende???

I admire your spirit. The situation is that there are too many tax rates: Nominal, Effective, Statutory, etc. If GE is supposed to pay a rate, then so be it. The point is that a "tax rate" is not the final tax rate. It is the loophole problem that raises the ire of those who don't have the loopholes. The tax law is the problem, not who is or is not taking advantage of it.

GE doesn't pay a single cent in taxes. Nor does any other corporation that isn't losing money, net. And they never will.

The ignorance sometimes displayed on this board is pathetic.

Go ahead, lock in the taxes the GE must pay by edict. But you also better restrict how much they can price their products and services at, and regulate their profit margins. At best the taxes that GE remits to various government authorities is merely a pass through from their customers to the government. Corporations are the AGENTS of government when it comes to taxes and if Zerohedge is a corporation you should already know that. When you aks for an increase in the taxes any company pays then you are aksing for an increase in prices that I pay when I buy GE Dishwasher. Comprende???

The tax slaves are stupid to believe that you can employ a robber who will steal from the rich and give it to them. Robbers do not stick to agreements and the rich outsmart the poor in everything including armed robbery of taxes.

OK so here is the plan. Elect American Insurgents to Congress, then we create a "no fly zone" over the banking industry and most major corporations. Then we start the bombing missions. You know, bomb walmart HQ, Goldman sachs, JP Morgan, GE and so on. Then we launch the invasion.

We spent so much money on the military industrial complex, it would be a shame if we wait around until they use it against us. Bush doctrine, preemptive war.( the banking system is a weapon of mass destruction?) you sir are correct.

I want to see Wolfs face when a congressman tells him, yes I was elected to start a preemtive war against corporate personhood and the oligarchy. We will shoot down all private jets as they take off. Oh and we decided we had to go nuclearer on the Federal Reserve, can't let those cockroaches escape alive.